DTV question [minor]

So one of my local TV stations seemingly stopped sending program information data--you know, the text that says what's on, what's going to be on, and explaining in more detail what's on. Landing on that channel, display simply showed "- No program information -". (BTW, this seems to be the default for all of the minor little public TV stations around here, not including the big PBS stations which are diligent about supplying this information.)

OK, no big deal, but slightly annoying, so I fired off an email to the station, alerting them to this situation and asking them if this was due to an omission at their end. (I confess I really don't know what that information is called, or how it gets supplied at their end. All I know is that it is somehow transmitted as part of the DTV datastream.)

Well, a day or two later, the program information started appearing for that station. I figured it *might* have been on account of my email--big slaps on the back for me as an Alert Citizen!--but since they hadn't replied, I had no way of knowing.

Then a couple days after that I got a reply back. The station's operations manager wrote and told me that they (the station) was supplying that information, and therefore if I wasn't seeing it, it was probably due to a problem at my end. He suggested doing a complete rescan (not an "update scan") on my DTV box.

I wrote back, and he replied to that. Here's what he said, in part:

(I had done nothing to my DTV box this whole time.)

So does anyone know if this is correct? Now there's another station (one of the big networks, not a local independent) that's missing its program info. Is it possible that my DTV box would selectively omit this information for just one or a few stations? Every other station shows this info for me, with the exceptions noted above.

That's probably a good idea. However, you can identify the culprit by simply checking for data presence on a different TV set (or at a local store). If none of the TV's see data from this station, then it's their problem. If only your TV lacks data, it's your problem.

IME DVB-T STBs seem particularly prone to mains borne noise and spikes corrupting the various bits of NVR data, you could try a mains conditioning socket strip to clean up the supply or run it through a UPS - handy for power outages that would mess up recordings on a PVR, otherwise doing the occasional re-scan is not such a big deal.

Various DVB-T faults get discussed on uk.tech.digital-tv so you could try asking there.

A search of the newsgroup list on the server I connect to only found uk, Aus & ru digital TV newsgroups.

You don't seem very grateful for the attempts to help you, so I think I've reached the limit of what I can do for you.

On 4/4/2011 1:06 PM Ian Field spake thus:

Are you sure of this, or is this just hand-waving? (Like the old "reboot your computer" advice of the techie on the other end of the phone, no matter what the problem.)

I ask because after doing a rescan, *another* channel still shows no program information, so obviously the scan did nothing to correct that. I still have no idea if the problem is at their end or my end, but the scan didn't help.

Does someone here *actually know* how this information is handled, propagated, etc?

On 4/4/2011 2:13 PM Ian Field spake thus:

You use the term "DVB-T" as if that's supposed to mean something to me. I'd never heard this term before.

OK, so it appears to be a *prospective* worldwide DTV standards-setting body. (Looks suspiciously like yet another Euro-standard being pushed on us, but never mind.)

But is this even applicable to the US? Not sure, even after reading this, with no mention of DVB-T applying to us:

In any case, I'm still looking forward to someone *here* who has at least an inkling of how textual program information is handled *here* (the US, where I live).

On 4/4/2011 2:29 PM Ian Field spake thus:

Well, you haven't been very helpful, so I guess we're even.

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Go read this as it should help you get started.

G=B2

On 4/4/2011 10:18 PM snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com spake thus:

Thank you. You win the "first person to actually provide useful information in this whole damn thread" award.